


Nerfed

by Calamityjim



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Drabble, Humor, No Angst, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:54:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27430831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calamityjim/pseuds/Calamityjim
Summary: Jason gets cursedPrompt: nerf guns
Comments: 20
Kudos: 178





	Nerfed

**Author's Note:**

> Rated for language.
> 
> Just a little Drabble from a prompt in the discord that thequeerestwriter and I decided to try.

Jason hated drugs. 

Jason hated magic.    
  


And he loathed the idiot that had come to his side of town to mix both.    
  


The street name was Wish, and on top of the normal high it gave people temporary magic powers. Constantine was a perfect example of why you don’t mix intoxicants with magic at the best of times, but this shit had no rhyme or reason. One person might spend their entire trip turning everything they touched into rubber ducks, while another might have bubbles come out of their mouth every time they tried to talk.    


  
Cute, harmless bullshit, right?   


  
Except people built up a tolerance fast, so they started taking more. The more they took, the stronger the weird magic shit they did was. Last week a group of teens had frozen to death in their buddy’s living room when he’d gone all Elsa. 

This week an apartment building had burned down.    


  
So yeah, someone had earned themselves a bullet massage. 

Jason had tracked the weirdo to an abandoned warehouse, of course, because it was always a fucking warehouse, and watched from the shadows. Going by all the mystical bullshit, like black candles and polished skulls, that was sitting by a high school chemistry set, he definitely had the right place, but his soon-to-be new acquaintance had yet to arrive.    


  
It gave Jason time to pick the perfect spot, slipping into the shadows by one of the tables and a barrel of Wish, and waited.   


  
The guy who finally showed up was a disappointment. No funky cloak, no spooky staff. He looked like a high school chem teacher in a stupid striped button up and thinning brow hair. Jason would have passed him on the street and pegged him as a normal civilian, letting him go about his day.    


  
This was not the street. 

Jason emerged from the shadows, gun in hand, with a level of drama that would put Bruce to shame and was rewarded with his chemistry wizard asshole jumped. But he didn’t pale or piss himself, which meant that Jason was losing his touch, this jerkwad didn’t know who the Red Hood was, or this guy was too fucking arrogant for his own good.    


  
“So,” Jason kicked off the conversation, the mechanical buzz of his voice distorter echoing eerily. If Jason wasn’t about to murder the fuck out of this guy, Bruce might actually be proud. Not that he could admit it. That fucker. “I hear you’re edging in on my terf.”

The asshole shrugged. “I’m just a producer. Not a distributor. I don’t control where anything goes.”   
  


“You’re new here,” Jason observed. Dude definitely didn’t know who the Red Hood was if he thought being the  _ source _ of the drug was gonna be what got him off the hook. 

  
“New and original,” he preened. “You tutor a kid in chemistry,” ha, called it, “you learn a little magic in repayment, and you get something special.” Then the asshole, the arrogant cum sucking mother fucker, had the gall to tilt his fucking head and say, “If you’re looking to be supplied I’ve got plenty. I know there have been a few hiccups in the formula, but I’ve been tweaking it.”

“Tweaking it?”   
  


The man smiled with his teeth. “Nobody misses a few street kids.”   


  
It took Jason a moment to realize that the bang that echoed through the warehouse was not the sound of his patience snapping, but of the gun in his hand, which, well, okay, was pulled because he’d had just absolutely fucking enough of this dweeb.    
  


The guy looked up, hand over his shoulder and the look of terror on his face that Jason had been wanting since he’d first shown up. Jason allowed his lips to curl upwards as he fired off another bullet. 

The bastard screamed and hit the ground, his knee missing a few key components. Jason hummed. “As I said, you’re new here.” He aimed his gun and paused, trying to decide where he should hit. 

It was a mistake. 

  
The man muttered something incomprehensible and waved at Jason. There was an unfamiliar blast of cold over his skin that left him tingling all over and Jason swore. He fucking hated magic. With a snarl, he pulled the trigger, this time aiming for between the eyes so he could go home and figure out what the asshole had done.    
  


A nerf dart hit the bastard in the middle of the forehead.    
  


The magician blinked.    
  


Jason blinked.    
  


They both looked at the nerf gun in his hand.    
  


“Mother fucker!” That had been his favorite. Jason tossed it aside and drew a knife.    


  
There was more than one way to gut a drug peddler. 

X-x-x-x-x-x-x   
  
Jason hummed as he washed the blood from his hands, his good mood tainted only by the loss of his favorite gun. But the explosion that had wiped out the Merlin wannabe’s little operation had done a lot to put some bounce in his step.

He was towel drying his face when he heard the crack of his window opening. Slowly, silently, he reached for the gun he kept velcroed under the sink. He slid through the door, ghosting along the wall as he tracked the soft thuds through his apartment. He could see a slim shape outlined in the dark apartment, standing in his kitchen casual as can be, as though it was the intruder who lived here. 

Then the little shit opened the cupboard where Jason kept his mugs. 

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Jason flicked on the lights to see the Replacement staring at him wide eyed with his cowl down, as though he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “Don’t any of you assholes know how to fucking knock?”

“You wouldn’t have answered,” Tim pointed out, his hand still frozen mid reach for a coffee cup. 

“Yeah,” Jason snarled, “that’s a fucking hint. Next time you come through the window I’m just gonna fucking shoot you.” He gestured with his gun.

Replacement snorted. Snorted! “With that?” he asked, a skeptical eyebrow raised. 

What was wrong with his gun? Jason looked down at it.    
  


In his hands was a plastic gun, splashed with the word  _ nerf _ . 

“Mother fu-”

X-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Now that Replacement wasn’t worried about getting shot, as though Jason couldn’t and hadn’t already proven that he could beat Replacement into the ground with just his fists, he was smiling like that cat in the cream. Jason grudgingly told him the story because as much as he hated Replacement, the little fucker was the most useful of all of Bruce’s kids. After he’d had a chuckle at Jason’s misfortune, which was something Jason was going to make him regret, likely with nair or itching powder, he’d launched into a list of experiments to try.    
  


So far Jason was down several hand guns, a shot gun, a semi-automatic, and a pot of coffee. If it wasn’t for the fact that Replacement was actually alternating between scribbling down notes and typing away, Jason would have accused him of some elaborate scheme to interfere with Jason’s second amendment. 

“Okay,” Tim tapped his lips absently. “Each gun morphed seconds after you drew it even though you weren’t going to fire it, so it’s not intent based. Results weren’t affected by lethal or non lethal rounds. The guns themselves all turned into different nerf guns, but none of the models are nerf guns that are inmarket, which means if you need to change careers you could easily make it onto their development team.”

Jason shot Tim in the side of the head. 

Replacement didn’t even stop tapping his lip. “You know that doesn’t hurt, right?”

“Fuck you,” Jason snarled. How the fuck was the Red Hood supposed to inspire terror and keep the gangs in check when he couldn’t use a fucking gun. “I need a goddamn grenade launcher.”   
  
X-x-x-x-x-x-x

A goddamn grenade launcher was, apparently, a type of gun.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x

So, as much as he hated Replacement, the kid was pretty flexible when it came to things like explosions, which was why Jason let him steal his coffee whenever Alfred cut him off. He wasn’t on the murder train express, but he seemed to be more hung up over the idea of Batman killing than of vigilantes killing, so he was pretty sure that Tim hadn’t revealed to any of the Bats that Jason had just offed yet another Breaking Bad wannabe. But the explosion might have tipped them off.    


  
Either way, he was currently pounding pavement, darting down alleys and ducking through buildings trying to lose Nightwing. Normally rooftops were the battleground of choice but Jason couldn’t brandish bullets, even fucking rubber ones, which meant that open spaces would give the human spring named Dick Grayson the advantage. Sticking to the narrow streets where Nightwing didn’t have room to pull all of his acrobatic bullshit was gonna be the fastest way for Jason to avoid having to put up with either some preachy sermon about being better than the scum they are supposed to stop or dodge a fucking octopus hug.    
  


Unfortunately, it looked like Barbie was running the show because Dickface dropped down right in front of Jason. “Hood,” he greeted, his voice bleeding annoyance. 

“Asshole,” Jason greeted back. 

Nightwing sighed. “You blew up our lead.”   
  
“No,” Jason ground out, “I resolved my case.”

He could practically hear Nightwing roll his eyes behind his domino, and he wanted to whip out a gun and shoot him right then and there. A rubber bullet because he didn’t want Bruce riding his ass, but a yelp of pain would have almost been as satisfying as wiping the condescending expression off of Nightwing’s stupid face. “Blowing up a drug storage site doesn’t stop production.”   
  


The moment he got his guns back he was definitely shooting Nightwing. Or Dick. Crashing a gala to shoot Dick in the balls would be highly satisfying. Vicky Vale would definitely write an article about it worth framing. “Pretty sure I’m the expert on how the drug trade works,” Jason snapped. 

  
  
“Your resume was a duffle bag full of heads,” Dick deadpanned. 

“Got the job,” Jason pointed out. Got it, held it, and fucking owned it. Tony Montana could eat his heart out. Still, the Bats heads were so far up their asses up the no killing rule that they often needed a flashlight to clue them in to how the real world worked. “The warehouse wasn’t the storage site, it was the production site. The drugs and the little shit stain making them are all gone. The problem is fucking solved.”   


  
“You didn’t need to kill them.” Oh great. Batman. Joy. 

  
  
Jason turned so the Bats were on each side. “He was killing street kids.” Not that Bruce cared. Keeping his hands free of blood was more important than making sure someone else’s didn’t run in the gutters. 

Bruce paused at that. Jason didn’t know why. Hopefully because of guilt. Either way, never one to miss an opportunity, Jason drew his grapple gun and fired. 

A nerf dart bounced off the fire escape. 

“Did you just…” Dick trailed off, staring down at the offendingly orange dart. 

Jason shot Dick in the face.   
  


x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

“Cursed.”

  
  
“That’s what I said.” Jason wasn’t pouting. He was just, biding his time. Once they’d realized that Jason was basically toothless they had dragged him back to the Cave, kicking and screaming. He’d been wrangled into medical where Alfred was taking his vitals. 

“Cursed so you can’t use guns.”   
  
Oh. Oh fuck no.

Jason could practically see the light filling Bruce at this little revelation. 

“I can still use knives,” he snarled. If Alfred hadn’t been right there he would have drawn one just to demonstrate the point. 

“Yes,” Bruce nodded while still looking far too fucking happy, “but not being able to use guns is dangerous for how you operate. You’ll need to stay somewhere until we find a way to reverse the spell.”

Jason could see where this was going. “Nope. Fuck you.”

“Language, Master Jason.”

Jason ignored Alfred. “Peace out.” He stood and moved to slide his shirt back on.

“How are you going to break the curse?” Bruce asked. It was an idle question. A dangerous question. The type of question Bruce asked when he’d already won.

“I know people.” Jason, did in fact, not know people. And judging by how Bruce was staring at him the man knew it. 

  
  
“You’ll be staying at the Manor until Zatanna can fix this.”   


  
Mother. Fucking. Fucker. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Prompt was Jason gets cursed so any time he holds a gun it turns into a nerf gun. I left it short and sweet here because I didn't want it to take off into this epic of Jason being reintroduced to the fold. Just a fluff piece. No angst.


End file.
